Dive Brief:
- Stewart’s Shops is in the approvals process for a two-story location in Saratoga Springs, New York, a company spokesperson confirmed to C-Store Dive.
- The East Coast convenience retailer is looking to convert a smaller-format Stewart’s Express store in the city into one of its more traditional locations. However, as part of that process, city officials are requiring Stewart’s to add a second floor to the structure, according to the spokesperson.
- If approved and eventually opened, this would mark Stewart’s second two-story location, and the first to debut in over four decades, the spokesperson said.
Dive Insight:
The only two-story location in Stewart’s network of over 400 locations is in Lake Placid, New York, which the company opened in the early 1980s, the spokesperson said. At that location, the second floor isn’t part of the convenience store — it’s a condominium the company uses for internal purposes.
The spokesperson said that although there’s no official decision yet on how Stewart’s will use the second floor in Saratoga Springs, for now, the plan is to use it similarly to the Lake Placid site.
The second floor, they said, would be a 3,500-square-foot living space on top of the 4,500-square-foot convenience store. This would quadruple the overall size and more than double the in-store space from the existing 2,000-square-foot location, which has “a fraction of the products and services” found at a standard Stewart’s, according to the spokesperson.
Despite its unique design, Stewart’s spokesperson emphasized that the retailer is only adding another floor at this site because city officials want “an operable second story” at the location.
“We're not looking to do this at multiple locations,” he said.
The spokesperson said that even though the second floor would not be part of the c-store, Stewart’s does not plan to sell or rent it out to anyone else. There’s currently no timeline for when the raze-and-rebuild might materialize, as Stewart’s still needs architectural and site plan approvals from city officials.
“We’re working our way through that now,” the spokesperson said.
